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With the second quarter basically in the rear-view mirror, have the trends that began in the first quarter of the year continued during the second quarter? Or, has there been a reversal? Let’s take a look, starting with the broad global stock markets. All returns are thru Wednesday, June 24:

The first two months of the calendar year can present an intriguing opportunity to examine the state of the financial markets, as fourth quarter earning’s season is basically complete. Let’s take a look first at the broad equity markets, starting with a 2014 review:

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon has long acted like an ideal customer on its own website: a freewheeling big spender with no worries about balancing a checkbook. Investors confident in founder and CEO Jeff Bezos' invest-and-expand strategy flooded into the stock as the company revolutionized shopping, upended the book industry and took on the cloud — even though its vast range of initiatives ate up all the company's profits.

The S&P 500 hit a new all-time high again last week for the 34th time so far this year. However, U.S. stocks appear increasingly detached.

While the S&P 500 has risen nearly 10 percent year-to-date, stocks outside the US have returned less than 3 percent. In fact, U.S. stocks have pummeled their international competition by an astounding 70 percent over the last five years.

Walgreen plans to keep its roots firmly planted in the United States, saying it will no longer pursue an overseas reorganization that would have trimmed its U.S. taxes but drew political scorn.

The nation's largest drugstore chain – which bills itself as "America's premier pharmacy" – said Wednesday that it will buy the remaining stake in Swiss health and beauty retailer Alliance Boots that it does not already own.

A jump in pharmacy revenue fueled June sales growth for two of the nation's largest drugstore chains, and they may start adding gains from the health care overhaul later this year.

Walgreen Co. and Rite Aid Corp. said Thursday that pharmacy revenue from their established stores climbed more than 11 percent at Walgreen and 5 percent at Rite Aid last month. Walgreen runs the nation's largest drugstore chain with 8,215 stores, while Rite Aid ranks third with 4,754. The company in the middle, CVS Caremark Corp., doesn't report monthly results.

And now a new study finds that the typical 401(k) fees – adding up to a modest-sounding 1 percent a year – would erase $70,000 from an average worker's account over a four-decade career compared with lower-cost options. To compensate for the higher fees, someone would have to work an extra three years before retiring.

Patients from the health care overhaul's new insurance exchanges have been more likely to use expensive specialty drugs for chronic conditions, according to data from the nation's largest pharmacy benefits manager.

Markets have regained their composure after a sharp, but necessary, sell off in early January. Sentiment has now retreated from the euphoric levels reached toward the end of last year, to more neutral levels.

NEW YORK (AP) — For most bond mutual funds, rising interest rates are kryptonite.

Higher rates on newly issued bonds make the lower yields on older bonds in their portfolios less attractive, and the price of those bonds declines. Many investors are worried about interest rates because the yield on the 10-year Treasury note has been rising. It hit 2.35 percent Wednesday, its highest level in 15 months.

AutoZone Inc.’s just-ended fiscal third quarter results show why it’s a rarity among public companies.

The Memphis-based auto parts retailer – the nation’s largest in the sector – is an earnings machine. Net sales were $2.2 billion for the quarter, and profit was up 6.8 percent to $265.6 million. The quarter also included AutoZone’s 27th straight period of double-digit earnings-per-share quarterly growth.

NEW YORK (AP) – The last remaining national bookstore chain is being taken off the shelf and dusted off for sale.

Founder Barnes & Noble's founder Leonard Riggio disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday that he wants to acquire the company's stores and website, but not the business that makes the Nook e-reader or the company's college bookstores. No price was disclosed.

The retailers said Wednesday they have agreed to combine in an all-stock deal worth about $1.2 billion that would transform the office-supply retail sector by helping the No. 2 and No. 3 chains compete against industry behemoth Staples.

It’s that time of year again. It’s that time when journalists across the fruited plain collectively try and make God laugh – with our prognostications, of course, about the year ahead and of what might be.

A few months ago, CNBC broadcaster Jim “Mad Money” Cramer all but reached up to the TV screen on his set to high-five Bryan Jordan, president, CEO and chairman of First Horizon National Corp., whose image was there via satellite.

Apples to Oranges Investors and media have run out of superlatives to describe Apple Inc. Not only has Apple become the biggest investment story, it has also become the world’s most highly valued company. Today Apple represents 4.4 percent of the S&P 500 and 16 percent of the Nasdaq composite index.

The bank that controls the biggest chunk of customer deposits in Tennessee and is one of the top two in the Memphis area is likely to post a small profit for the quarter as well as the full calendar year when it reports earnings Jan. 24.

NEW YORK (AP) – Barnes & Noble Inc. said Thursday it plans to invest more heavily in its Nook e-book reader and digital media, even as it reported a third-quarter loss as sales of physical books continued to decline.

NEW YORK (AP) – In an unexpected twist, TVs are topping many Christmas shopping lists this year.

Wal-Mart says TVs are among the top gifts people are putting on layaway at its 3,000-plus U.S. stores during the holiday season. The Westinghouse 46-inch LCD HDTV that was on sale for half off at Target for $298 was a top seller during the start to the season last weekend. And Abt Electronics already has sold out of 55-inch Samsung LED TVs that were marked down by half to $1,099.

“Sentiment is as fearful and irrational as we have experienced.” That’s a line from the most recent quarterly letter to shareholders of the Longleaf family of mutual funds that’s managed by Memphis-based Southeastern Asset Management.

BOSTON (AP) – Fidelity Investments is opening up some of its college savings plans by including other companies' mutual funds on its menu of investment options, rather than restricting investors to Fidelity's own funds.

NEW YORK (AP) – Amazon's Kindle Fire is a Catch-22 for retailers: The $199 tablet computer could both help Christmas traffic and hurt future sales.

Retailers hope the Kindle Fire's low price tag – which is less than half that of Apple's cheapest iPad tablet – will attract shoppers to stores during the busy holiday season. But the device, which offers free shipping and other incentives for customers to shop at Amazon, ultimately could drive sales to their online nemesis.

Memphis-based SouthernSun Asset Management, which has 24 employees and more than $1.9 billion in assets under management, announced its SouthernSun Small Cap Fund has received a five-star Overall Morningstar Rating out of 305 small value funds.

Health care stocks historically provide a relatively safe haven in roiling markets. They're less tethered to the economy's every movement than other stocks and tend to be less volatile.

Anxious investors might be considering putting money in the sector, but the current outlook is complicated by uncertainty over the government's changing involvement in health care. The wild card is potential cuts to Medicare or Medicaid, soon to be considered by Congress' new debt-reduction supercommittee.

AutoZone Inc. chairman and chief executive officer Bill Rhodes told analysts during a presentation of the company’s second quarter results Tuesday morning that the Memphis-based auto parts retailer had its best quarterly performance since the end of 2003 for the period ending Feb. 12.

AutoZone Inc. chairman and chief executive officer Bill Rhodes told analysts during a presentation of the company’s second quarter results Tuesday morning that the Memphis-based auto parts retailer had its best quarterly performance since the end of 2003 for the period ending Feb. 12.

BOSTON (AP) — Investors are finally inching back into the stock market. But are they too late?

While millions sought refuge in traditionally stable bonds over the past two years, they missed a more than 90 percent rally in stocks. Suddenly bonds don't look so safe, and some of the $11 trillion that Americans have parked in mutual funds is shifting back to stocks.

NEW YORK (AP) – Demand for new cars will likely spike in 2011 among consumers who lenders will be happy to do business with: those with very high credit scores.

More than 60 percent of the leases expiring next year are held by borrowers in the "super prime" category, meaning they have credit scores of 720 or better, reflecting excellent on-time payment histories, according to TransUnion, a Chicago-based credit reporting agency.

NEW YORK (AP) – As more people visited Starbucks cafes and spent more at the end of summer, the company's fourth-quarter net income nearly doubled, handily beating estimates, and the company raised its target Thursday for fiscal 2011 profit.

CHICAGO (AP) – McDonald's lesson from July: If you want to start selling cold, fruity drinks, pick one of the hottest months in U.S. history.

The fast-food giant posted its biggest monthly increase in more than a year in an important U.S. sales figure as U.S. as the fast-food chain's new fruit smoothies and ice-cold frappes got a warm reception from customers.

Memphians Staley Cates and Mason Hawkins – Southeastern Asset Management Inc.’s president and chairman/CEO, respectively – have been nominated as Domestic Stock Managers of the Year by Chicago-based investment research firm Morningstar Inc.

NEW YORK (AP) - A year after the financial system nearly collapsed, the nation's biggest banks are bigger and regaining their appetite for risk.

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and others – which have received tens of billions of dollars in federal aid – are once more betting big on bonds, commodities and exotic financial products, trading that nearly stopped during the financial crisis.

In a letter they sent to shareholders a few days ago, the managers of a family of Memphis-run mutual funds worked to reassure investors their holdings are on track to recover last year’s losses.

The Memphis-based managers of the Longleaf Partners family of mutual funds – who promised, once the Great Recession took hold last year, they would keep a conservative approach as “an anchor against fear” – told shareholders they’re optimistic again. And they are slowly posting the results to back that up.

CHICAGO (AP) - It was September 1985 when a 24-year-old Brian Dunn knotted his skinny leather tie and set off to began a job as a sales clerk inside a small electronics store in Minnetonka, Minn., named Best Buy.

NEW YORK - Retailers marched out a series of cheerless results Tuesday for their most important season of the year, the fourth quarter, when consumers seem to have put off buying almost anything they had a choice about.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - Beleaguered insurer American International Group Inc. is apparently asking for its fourth loan from the federal government just days before it is expected to report a fourth-quarter loss.

EAST PEORIA, Ill. (AP) - President Barack Obama's stimulus plan may be good for Caterpillar Inc., but the company's chief executive says the equipment maker will probably have to lay off more staff before it starts thinking about rehiring any of the more than 22,000 employees it already plans to cut.

CHICAGO (AP) - Office Depot Inc. will close about 9 percent of its North American stores and cut 2,200 jobs over the next three months while planning to open fewer locations next year in an effort to cut costs.

NEW YORK (AP) - Consumers hungry for cheap meals boosted worldwide sales at McDonald's Corp.'s established locations by 7.7 percent in November, more proof of how the fast-food leader is thriving in a downturn that has eaten into sales at its competitors.

That’s the way they put it in the quarterly report released last week for the Longleaf Partners family of mutual funds they manage. They used those words to describe themselves because they have in large part not been abandoned by shareholders of their funds – even though those funds have taken quite a beating this year.

The Longleaf Partners fund, Longleaf Partners International fund and Longleaf Partners Small-Cap fund each have lost about half their net asset value so far in 2008. To get an idea about the reason for the financial pain, holdings of the trio of funds include FedEx Corp., Sun Microsystems, General Motors and Dell Inc., all of which have troubles of their own.

GM is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Stock analyst Keith Schoonmaker said Memphis-based FedEx took a “one-two punch” in 2008 in the form of lower package density combined with increases in jet and diesel fuel prices. Sun – a computer, computer parts and computer software vendor – announced last week it is cutting at least 6,000 jobs.

Fortunate days?

Meanwhile, the managers of the Longleaf Partners funds wrote in their third quarter shareholder update that they are lucky. The reason for their good fortune is they have “loyal and long-term fellow shareholders” who have continued to support the funds even as dark days appear to be on the horizon for the global economy.

“For those with the conviction, fortitude and time horizon to live through this volatility, we firmly believe that their patience will be rewarded,” the fund managers wrote to shareholders.

The quarterly report comes on the heels of a flurry of communication over the past several weeks from the managers of the Longleaf Partners funds who also are executives of the Memphis firm Southeastern Asset Management. Hawkins is chairman and CEO of the firm, and Cates is its president.

The money managers sent a letter to shareholders last month in which they promised a conservative appraisal of the funds’ economic picture as an “anchor against fear.” They arranged a conference call for shareholders on Oct. 7 for which the executives received more than 300 e-mails with questions in anticipation of the conference call.

Confident

The Q3 report adds context to the picture and represents a transparent assessment of the funds’ situation from its managers.

Investors are being urged to stay calm. “Some pundits are talking depression and positing that today’s environment is somewhat analogous to the 1930s,” Hawkins told investors during the conference call. “We strongly disagree and believe that such talk is not only irresponsible but is not supported by the facts.”

Among the themes of the Q3 report, Longleaf’s managers assure shareholders they know what the companies in their portfolios are worth and that many of the executives whose companies are included in the portfolios have much of their net worth tied to their own stocks.

As a further show of confidence, each director on the board of directors overseeing the Longleaf funds has much of their wealth tied up in the funds, according to Chicago-based investment research firm Morningstar Inc. The directors have more than $100,000 invested in the funds, and most of them have more than $100,000 in each of the three funds.

“We are confident that the Longleaf portfolios will deliver large returns coming out of the bear market because of the competitive and financial strength of our holdings, the extreme undervaluation of their shares, and the numerous and aggressive share repurchases at these discounted price levels,” the fund managers assured investors in the report.

Lobbyists representing check-cashing businesses, payday lenders and auto title loan shops are meeting with Memphis and Shelby County lawmakers to voice their concerns over a proposed zoning ordinance designed to curb their growth.

NEW YORK (AP) - Consumers worldwide who are watching their spending bought more burgers and chicken breakfast biscuits at McDonald's in October, leading to a big rise in sales at established locations for the fast-food leader.

“When the seas are roughest, a conservative appraisal is our anchor against fear.”

That’s one line from a letter sent to shareholders last month by the Memphis-based managers of the Longleaf Partners family of mutual funds. Its reference to choppy financial waters is an apt metaphor for the group of funds, three of which have taken a beating during the year-to-date period and at times lag the performance of rival funds and the S&P 500 Index.

For both shareholders and executives of FedEx Corp., the transportation giant’s expected outlook for 2009 soon will come more into focus after several months of wrestling with the housing and economic slump in the U.S.

NEW YORK (AP) - Investors who rushed to the relative safety of bond funds when the stock market began to stagger last year might have felt they had outrun the troubles in equities - only to face the new threat of inflation when oil prices started soaring. But with the cost of crude now falling, some fixed-income investors could now find themselves in an enviable position.

Over the past several months, federal lawsuits have mounted in West Tennessee on behalf of investors who suffered large losses in a group of beleaguered Regions Morgan Keegan mutual funds.

During that time, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has requested information about the low-performing funds from Regions Financial Corp., the parent company of Memphis-based Morgan Keegan. And investors from around the country have peppered the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority with requests for arbitration related to the funds.

At 5 p.m. Feb. 18, an attorney-client meeting was called to order at the Poplar Avenue law offices of Apperson Crump & Maxwell PLC.

In attendance was a group of about 10 people. It included at least four lawyers, Regions Morgan Keegan mutual fund shareholders and representatives of other shareholders who were not present. The first item of business: mapping out the next few steps in a complex securities class action suit filed on behalf of those shareholders against the Memphis-based Morgan Keegan brokerage firm.

Shareholders of First Horizon National Corp. will put the Memphis-based financial services company under close scrutiny this week.

The first big opportunity comes Tuesday, when the company's 2008 annual meeting of shareholders convenes in the auditorium of the First Tennessee Building at 165 Madison Ave. Several things are on the agenda for that meeting, including the election of four Class III directors and one Class II director and a vote to approve the declassification of the company's board of directors.

Birmingham, Ala.-based Regions Financial Corp., one of the largest banks in Memphis, will report its first-quarter earnings April 15, kicking off a year that likely will be dominated by decisions connected to the nationwide credit crunch.

Fifth Third Bank of Cincinnati wants a federal court to order Memphis-based First Horizon National Corp. not to touch Fifth Third's new signage and other property it recently installed at nine Atlanta-area bank branches.

They were supposed to be a good place to park cash. The mutual funds were so stable and generated such profitable returns, in fact, that one broker who steered investors to them reportedly described one of the funds to a client as a "widows and orphans fund."

The number of angry investors who have lost money recently in one or more of a group of Regions Morgan Keegan mutual funds - and who are itching for a legal battle because of it - is growing.

A new lawsuit has been filed in federal court in Memphis on behalf of two investors in a pair of the funds, the values of which have plummeted since the beginning of 2007 because of their exposure to subprime mortgage-related assets.

The number of angry investors who have lost money recently in one or more of a group of Regions Morgan Keegan mutual funds – and who are itching for a legal battle because of it – is growing.

A new lawsuit has been filed in federal court in Memphis on behalf of two investors in a pair of the funds, the values of which have plummeted since the beginning of 2007 because of their exposure to subprime mortgage-related assets.

At the four law firms across the U.S. where attorneys are jointly investigating the recent management and performance of several Regions Morgan Keegan mutual funds, the phones ring just about every day.

Lawyers from four firms across the U.S. are working together to investigate the management and performance of several Regions Morgan Keegan mutual funds.

As a result of that investigation, as many as a dozen complaints are expected to be filed in the near future on behalf of investors who've seen the value of their investments in those funds plummet dramatically. If other investigators and lawyers are looking into the funds too, still more complaints could be on the way.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has nixed its plan to develop a Supercenter on a chunk of the 95-acre property formerly home to the Mall of Memphis.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based discount retail chain had been under contract to buy about 20 acres of the sprawling property at Perkins Road and Interstate 240 for at least a year. This spring, Wal-Mart submitted tentative architectural plans and filed a $7.1 million building permit to build a store at the Mall of Memphis site.

Speaking to an audience of journalists in August at an evening session of the two-day "Journalism That Matters" seminar held at George Washington University, Commercial Appeal editor Chris Peck issued a warning to his colleagues.

Peter Ching, 28, landed a job as a programmer at a New York software company this summer. But he had second thoughts when he saw the menu of mutual funds in the company's 401(k) retirement-savings plan.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Could the housing market's woes spread to bonds held in mutual funds by millions of ordinary investors?

Some experts - and hedge fund investors who have made big bets that the mortgage crisis will worsen - are saying that's exactly what will happen. Some bond funds that invest in riskier short-term debt already have been whacked by soaring default rates on bonds backed by subprime loans made to borrowers with weak credit.

At some point in September, a group of Wal-Mart executives will hunker down at a private meeting in Memphis to strategize about various opportunities for the retail giant in the city.

The company recently has been active here on several new fronts. Wal-Mart sold a parcel of land on Hickory Hill Road this month, for example, to an Arkansas-based oil company that is buying up land it leases from Wal-Mart for its gas stations. This spring, Wal-Mart also filed a $7.1 million building permit to build one of its Supercenters on part of the 95-acre site once home to the Mall of Memphis.

Once investments tied to the subprime mortgage market began taking a beating - now part of a daily drama unfolding in the national financial press - several Regions Morgan Keegan mutual funds found themselves more bloodied than almost all of their rivals.

93. Archived Article: Tech Briefs - Wednesday, November 12, 1997 Kathleen- The Memphis/Shelby County Public Library and Information Center is seeking volunteers to serve as library Internet assistants. Fifteen of the 22 public library locations currently have the Internet, and the Main Library is set to go on lin...

94. Archived Article: Market Briefs - Monday, October 07, 1996 Concord EFS Inc Concord EFS Inc. announced last week that it has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange commission covering a proposed public offering of 2 million common shares. All of the shares are being offered by the co...